Storage technology and networking technology are the two pillars of the computing revolution. Storage medium, such as CD-ROM, is known for its massive storage, good quality playback of data, relatively fast retrieval of information and ubiquitous availability through home computers. However, storage technology has its disadvantages: the information stored in the media cannot be updated automatically by the information publisher, becomes obsolete quickly and errors cannot be corrected. Above all storage technology offers limited interactivity. On the other hand, networking technology offers users highly dynamic data exchange, provides up-to-date information, multi-user interactivity and unlimited number of data sources. The shortcoming of networking technology are its limited bandwidth, slow and relatively unreliable data retrieval, unstructured data and high maintenance cost.
Recently multimedia companies in the United States announced plans for a new interactive, online multimedia technology to provide hybrid CD-ROMs. These CD-ROMs shall combine the rich multimedia contents of the traditional CD-ROM media with the online connectivity of networking technology. Such online connection hybrid CD-ROMs connect up-to-the minute information online that relates to the multimedia rich contents on the CD-ROM. See, Bruce Milligan, Hybrid CD ROMs: Tools For The New Media Consumer, Multimedia Online Magazine (Issue No. 1, October 1995) pages 84-91.
Despite the announcement of the hybrid CD-ROMs by US multimedia companies, the titles that are produced thus far for hybrid CD-ROMs programs do not offer seamless updating of data objects on hybrid CD ROMs by remote data sources. By seamless connection or updating of the data objects by remote data sources, the present invention refers to the transparent linkage between the data objects with the remote data sources and the automatic updating of such data objects without the users' awareness of such process.